Spor ting L ife By Tom Br yant

A Hunt to Remember

One of life’s seasons

“To ever ything there is a season and a time to ever y purpose under the heaven.” — Ecclesiastes 3, King James Version

By tom Brya n t The first time I ran across this quote from the Bible, I thought some guy had stolen the words from my mother. It was one of her favorites.

A good example: W hen I was able to squeak by, grade-wise, and graduate from high school and was complaining one night at the supper table about not being able to play baseball or football for good old AHS, Mom said, “Son, there is a season for all things, and that season at Aberdeen High School has ended. But a completely new season is beginning for you at Brevard College. Remember what the dean said? If you make the grades and sur vive probation, maybe you can play baseball for them.”

The favorite quote from Mom came back to me the other evening as I was up in the Roost, a small apartment over our garage. I usually hang out there when I need to write a column or work on my novel. On this particular evening, I was sorting through some dove hunting equipment. I mean, af ter all, the season is upon us, and that’s the kind of season I like. Dove hunting season is never over or at least will never be over in my lifetime. W hat’s beyond that is anyone’s guess.

I ran across a small box in the corner of the closet where I store most of my hunting clothes. It was f ull of a bunch of Ducks Unlimited paraphernalia. At one time I was into that conser vation club in a big way because, in the early days, if you were a duck hunter and worth your salt, you were a member of DU. For years I was a sponsor, not particularly because I was such a conser vationist, although in realit y I am, but primarily because of all the perks that went with the title.

In the beginning years of DU, the cost to be a sponsor in the A lamance Count y Chapter was two or three hundred dollars, not a trivial amount in those days. My partner and I had just started a small week ly newspaper and were working hard to make ends meet, but we had enough money to sponsor what we considered a noble cause. A lso, we figured we would find some good stories by being part of the local chapter. And we surely did.

There was a huge competition between chapters across the state to raise the most money supporting habitat for waterfowl. Jim, my business partner, and I got caught in the middle. But we weren’t alone. Numerous hunters in our area spent countless hours, and some of the members spent big bucks, to make the A lamance Chapter fly.

T hey were a var ied g roup. R ichard Cock man, a f ur nit ure company representative, headed the local chapter DU board, along with Dick Coleman, a haberdasher and specialt y clothing store ow ner. Other board members included Ronald and Jim Copland, ow ners and executive of ficers of Copland fabr ics; Don and Steve Scott, ow ners and of ficers of their long-standing family textile company; and Nat Har r is, an insurance executive with clients f rom all over the countr y. Nat still ser ves on the board of the Nor th Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. A lso on the board was Bennett Sapp, a clothing broker with one of the first outlets in the Burling ton area; and last but not least, Er nie Kour y, whose family was into a little of ever y thing, f rom textiles to real estate holdings. T he Duck s Unlimited leaders dur ing those early days car r ied financial weight as well as a ton of business influence.

The banquets put together for the area sponsors were top of the line. Held at the A lamance Countr y Club, the event would begin with a cocktail hour. Kour y, whose family members were big supporters of UNC - Chapel Hill, would recruit cheerleaders from the universit y to sell raf fle tickets during the libation hour. And they sold a bunch. Items raf fled during the banquet were acquired throughout the year from local merchants and were first class. Auction items were even better. Prizes included an oceanfront cottage for a week at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina; a goose hunt in Easton, Mar yland; the DU gun of the year; and numerous qualit y art objects from paintings to sculptures to decoys. The top prize, though, was a puppy, either a bird dog or a L abrador retriever with champion lineage. These pups brought a lot of attention and dollars to the event.

Auction items generated “big bucks for the ducks,” but Jim and I usually stood back and watched. We did buy several raf fle tickets and won items too numerous for me to remember.

Sponsors looked for ward to the Ducks Unlimited banquet ever y year, but the greatest perk for me was the opening day dove hunt. I went on several DU dove hunts in those early years, but there is one that was an almost perfect weekend of sport shooting and camaraderie. A ll hunters have a particular hunt or experience that deser ves a gold star in the hunting journal, and this weekend was one of those.

This was before the Weather Channel made a living by reporting one disaster af ter another and blaming it all on global warming. Growing up in the South, we expected hot weather at the beginning of dove season and looked for ward to more of the same on this specific hunt. The Friday before opening day dawned with a hint of coolness

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in the air. I was up early that morning letting my puppy, Paddle, out of her kennel. The air was still and dr y, with low humidit y and only a smidgen of a breeze from the northwest. Dog wood leaves in the backyard, already turning a burnt orange color, also added to the false image of an early fall.

Paddle romped around the backyard, did her business and came charging back to me as if to say, “Come on, boss. L et’s go do something, like hunt birds.”

She was a small, young, yellow L ab and had added so much to my hunting experiences that ever y time I looked at her, I couldn’t help but smile. “No, girl,” I said to her, “we’ve got some doings to take care of before we can head to the fields.”

T he doings I refer red to was a cocktail par t y and pig pick ing that evening at the pool area of the countr y club. T he pig picking had become a tradition for the DU folk s the evening before the opening day shoot. It was put on by none other than the famous and popular Junior Teag ue, a far mer and count y commissioner f rom the souther n end of the count y.

The next morning, though, all that was just a pleasant memor y as I loaded up the old Bronco with guns, my 10 -year-old son, Tommy, Paddle, and a cooler filled with plent y of water. We were ready to roll.

Our weather luck was still holding, low humidit y with the same sof t breeze from the northwest. The jumping of f point was a local bank at the shopping center. We would meet the group there, then caravan to the cut cornfield where we would spend the af ternoon dove hunting.

In those days, we were hunting the fields of then- Gov. Bob Scott, and what a hunt it was. Suf fice it to say, the gold star in the hunting journal had another added to it. As I read the entr y I made so many years ago, I recalled Mother and her seasons reflection. I added a thought of my own as a postscript to the note in the journal:

“Mom was right when she emphasized the quote from the Bible, ‘There is a season for all things.’ It’s been my fantastic luck during my lifetime that when one season ended for me, another began.” PS Tom Br yant, a Southern Pines resident, is a lifelong out doorsman and PineStraw’s Spor ting Life columnist.